There is a lot that can go right or wrong when hiring medical transcription help. Any company can hire reps that will write down what you say in a tape. But, can they do the job right and on time?

Error Rates are well documented in the Medical Transcription industry. It is the only industry I’ve seen with such detailed statistics. But, how do you know if their error rate calculation is accurate unless you take your own reading.

Communication is another factor. Does the company that you hired communicate well? Do they pick up the phone? Are they happy to hear from you? Dealing with unpleasant people is a sure way to ruin your day. The question is, can you find the right people?

Commenting is another issue. Can your medical transcription agent make appropriate comments? Also, can they differentiate between text they should include, and you saying “ouch” when you stubbed your toe? Many are so incompetent that they just put the ouch right into the text (and then get fired as a result.)

A smart medical transcription company can catch your errors instead of making errors on their own. It’s just a question of hiring sharp people who care. Some of the MT companies out there are so horrible that my chiropractor decided to train his own girls how to do the job even though it was more expensive. But, his girls did the job right.

The best place to find medical billing and medical transcription outsourcing companies is right here on 123outsource.net!

I just got adjusted a few days ago. It felt good. My Chiropractor is the best. I have been his loyal patient for more than a decade. I get electric stimuli, a double treatment of ultra-sound, and an adjustment for only $40. I should offer them more since they are the best in town despite their out of the way location that takes me over an hour to reach!

But, during my last adjustment, we had a chat about Medical Transcription Outsourcing — his least favorite topic.

–Crack–
Me: “That was a loud one… so, I found some good software outsourcing companies who actually communicate effectively for a change”
Chiropractor: “I stopped outsourcing a while ago. I had a Filipino Medical Transcription company doing my dictations. They included verbiage I was yelling to my secretary during the dictation like — ‘close the door please’. I can’t believe that didn’t have the brains to know that was not part of the dictation. I can’t use these guys anymore. They are clueless”
Me: “I guess it was not worth the savings”
Chiropractor: “They were charging me $5 to do it wrong when I only get $10 from the insurance companies and American companies charge me $20 to give me a headache.”
Me: “That sounds really bad. I’m sorry to hear that.
–Snap–
Chiropractor: “Your neck is really bad, what have you been doing?”
Me: “I’m stuck at a computer all day and all night”
Chiropractor: “You need to go back to your old massage therapist, your adjustments were easier a few years ago”
Me: “So, what do you do now about your dictations?”
Chiropractor: “I trained one of my girls here how to do it. She does a perfect job and can do FOUR per hour with hardly any mistakes. With the outsourced Medical Transcription services I had to pay them to do it wrong, and then spend three hours a week fixing their mistakes manually. It probably would have been easier to just type it myself”
Me: “I wish there was a way to analyze quality control for these types of services. The good Medical Transcription services are typically owned by larger corporations and cater exclusively to in-house jobs”
Chiropractor: “Turn on your side — you are probably right!”

I’m learning that the way to do business is to find in-house solutions to your business needs. You are more in control of quality and timeliness of output if you hire your own people. But, if you hire smaller companies, learn to master the art of screening them. There are good outsourcing companies out there. You just need to know how to weed out the bad Medical Transcription Outsourcing companies, and handle the good ones.